


Bull in a China Shop

by jackintheboxx



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Antique Store, Fluff, Friendship/Love, M/M, Romance, Slow Build, Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackintheboxx/pseuds/jackintheboxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek Hale is the owner of an antique shop in a small, seaside town. He tries to live his life day-by-day, dealing with the absence of his family and running the store. Everything is pretty routine until a young college student comes crashing into his store. Sterek AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bull in a China Shop

**Author's Note:**

> I got this little idea while I was at a town like this near me. There are so many coffee shop AUs that I figured a little twist could be fun. This town is heavily based off of a real place on Long Island, but the town in the story can still take place in California...whatever suits your fancy. 
> 
> Kept the Hale fire in this story, but tweaked it a bit so Laura Hale was killed in the fire, too. 
> 
> This story will probably end up being about 3-5 chapters. Hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think!
> 
> Rating may change.

The dust particles clung to his fingertips like little memories left over after all of the hauling and all of the previous owners. Some of the antiques were bruised, some broken, but all had a special quality that Derek Hale found worthy enough to try selling them.

The small, seaside town of Blueport had been Derek’s home since he was a baby. He didn’t have the heart to move away after the fire that left him an orphan at 16-years-old. The only surviving member of the family was his uncle, Peter Hale, who had managed to crawl his way out of the embers with terrible burns. He acted as Derek’s guardian for a few years until Derek was legally allowed to care for himself.

Derek felt locked to his hometown, to the old house that had been charred and forgotten with a ‘For Sale’ sign tacked into the dirt. He’d tried various times to leave, filling his car with any belongings he had and having his foot on the gas pedal. Blueport was like a cut in his mouth that he kept tonguing at; just to make sure it was still there.

It hurt to leave and it hurt to stay, so Derek opted for the small hurt of passing by his old street once in a while when he could not avoid it. He stayed around the familiar faces of the small town, and opened the largest antique shop in town. There was a group of locals who stuck around all year, but Blueport functioned more as a summer town, being situated right near docks and only a few minutes away from the nearest beach. Derek was thankful for the busy months when tourists would pour in from all over, wanting the quaint, little beach town experience.

He put all his focus into finding old relics, things people had carelessly tossed away. Sometimes he would fix the furniture pieces. Wood was easy to sand and correct and little trinkets were easy to play around with until they worked again. He had worked on an old record-player for about a month before it began to crank out music again. Old paperback books, bottles and cans from the 1950s, VHS tapes, and anything else Derek found remotely of interest gathered in cardboard boxes and was brought to the store. There was always someone whose face lit up when they picked up something that had long been forgotten.

There was a certain quality about antique shops that kept people peeking in. Perhaps it was an interest in vintage items or perhaps it was even an interest in knowing that the object you held once was a possession in someone’s home, and unless it had their name written on it, you would never know who bought the item in the first place.

“Hello there, Derek!” The familiar raspy voice of George, an 88-year-old town local, filled the antique store. He was a regular, but only for the fact that he liked to chit-chat. He always came in with a small cup of ice-cream that he had purchased a few doors down.

Derek looked up from the stack of dusty records he was arranging. “Morning, George,” he responded with a small smile. “Little early for ice-cream, don’t you think?” He nodded his chin towards the clock above the cashier that read 11 A.M.

“Nonsense!” George waved him off, toddling into the store. “It is never too early for ice-cream, and you are a grumpy ol’ dog to think so.”

Derek ducked his head to hide a chuckle.

George was the only person in town who showed no shed of nervousness around the “brooding Hale boy.” Derek preferred the term serious, but he would never correct anyone. Most of Blueport’s residents were forgiving due to his situation.

“Records?” George placed his dribbling ice-cream cup atop the cashier counter. He shuffled through Derek’s mess to get to the pile. “Any jazz for a friend?”

“If you find any, you can take it. Just don’t tell anyone I gave it to you for free,” grumbled Derek, sifting through the rest of the pile. His fingertips were turning black due to the dust, but he was almost finished rearranging the record display.

George did, indeed, find a jazz album to his liking. He carefully placed _Porgy and Bess ___, on the nearest record player. His wrinkled fingers placed the needle in the precise place he wanted. “Summertime” by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong crooned throughout the antique shop, as George swayed to the tune and Derek continued to arrange the leftover albums.

__

+

Derek lived in a shore-side shack that barely constituted as a house. It had a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living-room area that were quite fit for one person. His backyard was the bay, and that was good enough for him. Plus, it was only five minutes out of town so the trip to and from work was barely anything to frown at.

He opened the refrigerator, and leftover boxes crowded every shelf. With a roll of his eyes, Derek slammed the refrigerator door shut. The white Styrofoam cartons served only as a reminder of how he was failing at properly living on his own. 

Derek glanced at the answering machine, blinking red, beside the fridge. Probably his Uncle Peter. 

Once Blueport had calmed down after the Hale fire incident, and Derek had turned 18, Peter packed together all of his belongings and never turned back. It was almost as if he could not stomach the thought of the desolate, blackened house or walking through the streets of the town that his family once lived in before the fire ripped them away. 

He and Derek had an interesting relationship, it was not overwhelmingly comforting but it was not entirely unhealthy, either. Derek couldn’t quite shake the disappointment of Peter washing his hands clean of Blueport and leaving without feeling any remorse. He stopped relying on his uncle once his car had drove in the opposite direction of the “Welcome to Blueport” sign. In truth, he had never really relied on him at all, but having a figure to call family was always a slight relief, and he steeled himself against the hurt once Peter decided to move away. 

Derek answered his phone-calls once in a while, just to assure his uncle that he hadn’t died due to smothering by Chinese food cartons. His uncle at least cared enough to make sure that his nephew was still breathing. 

He pressed the ‘delete’ button. He could call Peter back the next day…or even sometime next week, if he was feeling chatty. 

Derek’s fingers began searching through the cabinets, which were barren to anything other than Spaghetti-O cans and cereal boxes. He decided he would need to get better at grocery shopping, or at least find the patience for it. 

He ate two bowls of Lucky Charm’s cereal for dinner, alone. He watched the nightly news, as he usually did. He did a few nighttime exercises, nothing overly strenuous, just actions to pass the time. He took a quick shower and then went to bed. It was all so routine, and it made him want to pull his sheets over his head and never leave bed again.

+

Derek flipped the ‘Closed’ sign to ‘Open’ at 8 A.M. He liked to get an early start, cleaning any mess leftover from the previous day that he had missed. He tried to keep the shop as clean as he could without losing the antique, musty vibe that so many people enjoyed. Any candles, incense, or clean smells would mask over the “ancient” smell.

He balanced his steaming coffee to-go cup between his teeth, closing the front door with the heel of his foot. Various books he had thumbed through were held in a bundle in Derek’s arms. Any books he found that had someone’s name scrawled on the front, or a message written in the margins, he liked to look through before selling. 

He managed to place the books on the large, shelved wall reserved for books without dropping his coffee to the floor. He allowed himself a small grin at the victory, lips curling around the cup’s rim. 

Just as Derek was getting comfortable behind the cashier counter, lazily sipping at his black coffee and checking through any emails on his phone, the bell chimed on the front door. 

A young, college-aged boy walked in. His thick brown hair was rustled and windswept, and his sunglasses kept drooping down the bridge of his slightly upturned nose. His pale complexion appeared unmarred by the sun, except for a few freckles here and there. He seemed intrigued by everything and touched anything he could get his hands on. 

Derek turned his attention back to his coffee just as a loud crash reverberated throughout the store. He jumped out of his seat, running to the back of the store. 

There was the boy, fumbling with a box of old baseball cards, quite a few of them littering the floor around his feet. “Oh, man, I’m sorry,” he blurted out quickly, his hand flying to run through his thick brown hair. “Bull in a China shop, my dad always said.” He looked down at his red Chucks in visible embarrassment. 

Derek was relieved that nothing was truly broken. “It’s fine,” he breathed out, bending down to begin collecting the fallen baseball cards. Some were frayed and bent at the edges, but the self-proclaimed “Bull in a China shop” had apparently found them worthy of looking at. 

He quickly dropped to his knees and helped Derek pick up the mess. “You have a really cool collection. I’ve never seen half of those cards before. It’s my dad’s birthday soon and I just thought it would be cool to get him something like that, you know?” His quick babble filled the silence and caused Derek to raise an eyebrow. 

“Yeah,” Derek responded slowly, unsure. 

“I’m Stiles, by the way. My dad and I rent a house out here every summer. We’ve done it since I was little, and—" Stiles stopped abruptly. He suddenly appeared very sheepish, and ducked his head. “I’m talking a lot, aren’t I?”

“It’s fine,” Derek found himself repeating. He’d met a lot of antique aficionados, but never one who was quite as energetic as Stiles was, and about everything. 

“Are you the only one who works here?” Stiles continued after Derek’s affirmation that his chatter was not unwelcome. 

“Yeah.” Derek cringed inwardly. He had a knack for sounding disinterested and moody. “Yeah, I’m the only one who works here,” he decided to add as an afterthought, figuring the more words he spoke the less Stiles would think he was unfriendly. 

“Oh, wow! That’s perfect!” Stiles almost dropped the baseball card pile he had accumulated in his hands. “My dad’s been bugging me to get a job while we stay out here.”

Derek pouted his lips in confusion. He was positive that he hadn’t put up a “Help Wanted” sign, and was perfectly content with handling the store on his own. However, Stiles looked extremely hopeful and willing. 

“I can do whatever you need me to,” Stiles said. “I can organize things or work the cashier.” 

Derek organized the stack of cards so none of them were jutting out and all were even. He pulled the cardboard box towards himself, putting the cards back to their rightful place before Stiles spread them across the floor. 

“Is that a maybe…?” Stiles’s voice had a hopeful lilt, as he tugged the box back and put his cards in. “See? I’m good at cleaning. Plus, I’ll be buying these anyway. You kind of owe me.”

“Owe you?” repeated Derek, both eyebrows rising. 

“Joke,” coughed Stiles. “It was a joke. Like, haha?” 

“I’ll think about it,” Derek muttered, unwilling to admit that he had done everything on his own for four years now. He was comfortable with it and the thought of having another person working with him made him feel anxious and a little agitated. He’d just get in the way. 

Stiles scrambled up off of the floor, baseball cards in hand. Some fluttered to the floor once again and he quickly scooped them up. He had a lopsided grin on his face. “I’ll just buy these and come back, then. Take your time!”

Derek grumbled to himself, “You’ll be waiting a long time…”

+

“That’s the sheriff’s boy, you know,” was George’s salutation for the day, as he entered the antique shop with ice-cream cup in hand. “You’d be smart to give him a job here.”

“How’d you know about that?” Derek was genuinely confused, and he usually prided himself in being two steps ahead, knowing what was going on in town. 

“Please,” chuckled George. “The boy’s a chatterbox. It was hard to not find out that he asked you for a job.” The plastic green spoon paused before his lips. “He seems like a nice boy, Derek. You should give him a chance.”

“I’m fine doing things on my own,” Derek replied with a deep-set frown. He kicked his leftover lunch carton under the cashier table, self-conscious even if George would not find the garbage questionable. 

George shrugged, a quick movement that jilted his bony shoulders. “Suit yourself. You won’t always have me to talk to—”

Derek could smell the “I’m an old man” speech from a mile away. “Stop,” he sighed, half out of annoyance and half out of the fear of facing such a predicament. “I told the kid I’d think about it, _all right_?”

“What for? Just say yes!” 

“I’ll think about it.” He managed to stop his teeth from grinding together.

+

So, Derek had halfheartedly agreed. His empty house and an elderly man who prodded too much had caused the guilt to gnaw at his insides. Having someone to help around wouldn’t be too much of a big deal, it could actually be helpful. Someone to send on errands when he was busy.

Stiles arrived at the store, bright and early, with a cup of iced-tea and a smile. His sunglasses drooped down to the tip of his nose. “Mornin’, partner!” 

Derek almost choked on his scalding coffee. “No,” he said steadily. 

“Oh, right. Got it, boss,” Stiles replied without missing a beat, saluting Derek with such fervor that his sunglasses fell to the sidewalk. 

This was going to be a long summer.

+

Stiles wasn’t a bull in a China shop. He was a tornado. A ruthless, ever-present tornado that ripped through everything with little to no knowledge of its power. Stiles toppled over the record display, a flurry of curses escaping his lips once he realized his blunder. He almost cracked the entire table of old Coca-Cola bottles that had taken Derek ages to get hold of. Every morning, he would walk into one of the statues outside, catching them at the last minute before they fell. He locked the cash-register on more than one occasion, and could not find the key. He almost ruined various VHS tapes in a vain effort to clean them, the actual tape falling in coils around his body. He chipped a few cups in a tea-set, proclaiming that it wasn’t a big deal and it gave them character.

The only thing that Stiles could handle with finesse was the customers. Derek would give him that small compliment; Stiles was a people-person, he could find a friend in an empty room. Derek had to admit that having Stiles stand outside and chat-up anyone who walked past actually _helped_ with business rather than hurt it. Most were charmed by Stiles’s large grin and childish antics, most of all kids and elderly people. They found him endearing, and would sit and listen to him prattle for hours on end. He’d tell stories, some fabricated, about the pieces found inside. 

One day, Derek caught him crouched down, telling a little girl that there was a mirror inside that was enchanted, and was given to him and Derek by a princess in a faraway land. He lead the girl and her mother into the story, hand-in-hand, and sold the “enchanted” mirror in less than ten minutes. The little girl had left with the largest, wonky tooth-revealing smile, cradling the handheld mirror to her chest. 

He just had a knack for it. He had a knack for people. 

He liked to talk to strangers, to hear their tales and make them smile. He always managed to find something for everyone, a cover to every pot. For Stiles, it just wasn’t difficult. 

Derek was thankful for that, at the very least. Words did not always come easily to him, and he froze under the pressure of conversing with a lot of people all at once. He was also a terrible liar, and not that Stiles lied necessarily, but he could sell a broken typewriter and claim that it would produce the next greatest novel. 

“Business has been booming!” As if on cue, George shuffled into the store. He had two ice-cream cups in hand, passing one over to an eager Stiles.

“It’s not off-season anymore,” was Derek’s response, as he snapped the cash-register closed. “It’s always busy around here during the summer months.”

“I think your little protégé is helping,” George laid it on thick, elbowing Stiles in the side. “You’re a natural, Bilinski!” 

Stiles had stopped correcting George after the first day. A thick blush ran across the bridge of his nose and flushed out to his cheekbones. He sucked thoughtfully on his little plastic spoon. “I wouldn’t say that,” he opted for after a moment’s pause. 

He was playing himself off as being completely humble, but Derek rolled his eyes. Once George would take his leave, Stiles would do a stupid little dance and sing about how great of a salesman he turned out to be. 

It took everything in Derek to not make a face and repeat Stiles’s words with a sarcastic bite. He practically shoved his face into his coffee mug instead. 

“I’ll see you boys tomorrow.” George paused, his hand on the doorway. “Pistachio tomorrow, Bilinski?” 

“Yes, sir. I always trust your ice-cream opinion.” 

George left with a smile and a final pat to the doorway. 

“Need help cleaning?” Stiles inquired, launching himself onto the cashier counter. His legs bounced to-and-fro, as a child’s would. He watched Derek expectantly, waiting for an answer. 

“You can leave, if you want,” replied Derek. “You’re usually not too much of a help cleaning…”

Stiles’s lower-lip jutted out. “One day I won’t be a bull in a China shop. I’ll be…I’ll be a mouse or something! You won’t even know I’m here.”

“Doubtful,” scoffed Derek, leaving his safe-haven behind the cashier desk to begin straightening up for the closing of the day. “Highly doubtful.”

“Well,” Stiles bristled, “doesn’t matter, anyway. You need me around.”

“Oh, I do?” Derek clenched the broom between his fists, fighting the urge to hit Stiles over the head…with the blunt side. 

“Your sourpuss can’t bring in all the business you’ve been getting.” Stiles’s chest puffed out, almost as a protector against anything Derek might rejoinder with. 

Derek hated to admit it, but Stiles was right. Stiles had the typical cheery and innocent air about him that tourists wanted to experience when they came to the small, dock town. Stiles was the person who remembered every customer’s name. He was the person who bade everyone to have a _wonderful_ day. People came back to see him. 

Derek’s reserve could not crack enough to allow such a presence, so Stiles was right. Derek couldn’t float around and welcome people into the store with just a few encouraging words. He worked behind the scenes, end of story. 

“Did I upset the big boss man?” Stiles crooked his eyebrows up in a mock saddened expression. 

“Clean.” Derek shoved a dust-pan into Stiles’s chest. 

“But I thought—”

“ _Clean ___.”

__

+

Derek’s only solace was his little shack. No noise, no mess, no Stiles. At least once a week, he would invite Derek out to dinner or invite him over for dinner with his dad. Derek always found a way to politely decline, and got away with saying he didn’t want to mix business and anything remotely social. It was better than saying he preferred Spaghetti O’s or even some kind of leftovers that had sat in his refrigerator for a week. That would have been a lie, too.

The Spaghetti O’s were bubbling in a pot on the stove, as the house phone began to ring. Derek swallowed hard, having little to no patience for dealing with his uncle at the moment. He knew he’d be calling, seeing as Derek had never returned the call from a few weeks prior. 

He picked up the phone, holding it in midair before bringing it up to his cheek. “Hey, Uncle Peter, sorry, but I’m real busy—”

“It’ll take two seconds!” A voice that was definitely not Peter’s came through the phone. 

“Stiles?” He’d forgotten that he had given Stiles his home-phone number, in case he was ever unable to make it to work and couldn’t reach Derek on his cell. “Stiles,” the initial shock faded, “this better not be—” 

Stiles interrupted him again, “No, no. I’m not bothering you about hanging out, promise. I have a teensy weensy favor to ask, and before you shut me down, you have to do the absolute minimum. I swear.”

“What?” Derek heaved a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. 

He could practically hear Stiles pumping his fist into the air in triumph. “I left my cell-phone at the shop, and seeing as you’re the only one with a set of keys…” 

“Stiles, I’m in the middle of dinner,” he glanced down at his pitiful Spaghetti O’s, “I can’t just go into town to get your cell-phone.”

“Right! You don’t have to. I’ll come pick the keys up from you, and I’ll just be there early tomorrow morning to open up. You don’t have to do a thing, just open your door and hand me the keys. You don’t even have to do that. You can leave the keys in the mailbox, or toss them out the window for all I care.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Derek mumbled. 

He really considered tossing the shop keys out of the window for Stiles to search for in the dark.

“You’re the best!” 

Or maybe even toss them directly into Stiles’s forehead.

+

Derek gave Stiles his address and tried to give him clear directions on how to get to his little beach house. He figured they would both want this to go as smoothly and as quickly as possible.

Derek answered his front door with a bowl of Spaghetti O’s in hand, ignorant of how childish his choice in an entrée was. “Here,” he said before Stiles could say anything, pressing the key into Stiles’s open palm. 

“Spaghetti O’s? Nice, dude,” Stiles said, and meant it. He had an expression of pure admiration on his face. 

Derek swiftly pulled the bowl behind his back, as if Stiles could forgot that it had been in plain sight moments before. “Yeah…whatever.” Smooth. 

“Thanks, by the way.” Stiles waved the fist with the key enclosed between his fingers. “I owe you one.” He stepped backwards down the front steps, stumbling over the last one. “I won’t touch anything, I promise. I know exactly where I left it. I’ll double-check the lock, so you won’t have to worry.”

“Why couldn’t you just get it in the morning?” Derek heard himself ask, and attempted, poorly, to hide his own surprise. He had let his practiced disinterest slip for a moment of genuine curiosity. 

“Someone might need to reach me,” Stiles answered easily, as if it was the simplest conclusion in the world. 

He was probably right, of course. Derek watched as Stiles jogged back to his Jeep, realizing with a grim frown that no one would need to reach _him_ , and that is why he even asked the question in the first place.

+

The following weeks brought about more tourists, more locals, and more Stiles fans. The sales skyrocketed, which Derek was pleased about, but he did allow a slight tinge of anger at the fact that it was not just the summer season. Stiles’s newfound friends always found something to buy just to placate the boy. He made his brownie-batter eyes wide and pushed out his lips, and people would buy anything he talked up enough.

One woman even stopped one day, touching Derek’s forearm, to say, “Don’t fire that boy. He’s precious.” 

Derek wanted to sell Stiles off to that woman, if she liked him so much. But he was selfish and liked the outbreak of business. The woman would have to come back and pinch Stiles’s cheeks on her own time. 

“Got you some ice-cream!” Stiles chirped, kicking the doorstop into place to keep the door open. He slid the dribbling cup across the cashier counter, Derek reaching out a finger to stop the full motion from sending the mess toppling to the floor. 

“I don’t like ice-cream…” Derek stared down at the frozen dessert as if it offended him. 

“Shut up, everyone likes ice-cream,” Stiles laughed. “Eat it.” 

“You can’t just boss people around into eating ice-cream. What if I’m lactose-intolerant?”

Derek hadn’t realized that he had said something funny until Stiles’s light laughter had exploded into loud barks. Stiles pressed a hand to his belly, seemingly attempting to suppress himself. 

“Well,” he sucked in a sharp breath, quickly masking his amused countenance, “are you?” 

“No…”

Stiles’s lip twitched at the corner. “Then eat up, sourpuss. No excuses!” 

Derek found himself frowning around the cold plastic spoon. Stiles had gotten him Honey Vanilla flavor, and he would be damned if he admitted that it was actually quite good. He continued to eat the forced gift in silence. 

“Where do you get all of these books from?” Stiles questioned offhandedly, spoon dangling out of his mouth. His free hand flicked through the bumped and bruised spines of the collection on the wall. 

“I don’t know, just find them around I guess,” replied Derek, pressing the stem of the spoon to the tip of his nose in thought. He pulled it away harshly after he became aware of the unconscious action. “Some of them I buy, read, and sell. Others I’ve found at other hand-me-down stores, read them, and then sell them. I’ve read all of the books on that shelf.” He paused to take a spoonful of ice-cream. “I figured there’s no reason to sell a book that I haven’t read. Who will want to read it if I had no desire to?”

“Well, that’s not subjective or anything,” Stiles snorted. “I can see where you’re coming from, but not everyone will have the same tastes as you do. You might not want to read “ _Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Mind Power_ ,” but what if someone else wants to?” He turned back to the display. “You should add some books you wouldn’t want to read here. I’ll read them, if you don’t want to.”

Derek found the willpower to not ask Stiles how he knew of such a book.

“I’ll write in them, too,” added Stiles with a soft grin. “Used books are always more interesting if there are notes to find.” 

“Those are my favorite,” Derek blurted before he could halt the flow. He was verbally digging his heels into the floor before he continued to gush about how much he loved reading books that were given to someone as a gift, with words of praise and encouragement on the title page. He didn’t even want to get started on reading books with someone else’s handwriting scrawled in the margins, seeing brackets and thoughts of what the previous reader found important. It was like reading two stories at once. 

“Yeah?” Stiles turned to look back at Derek, seated uncomfortably behind the cashier counter. 

“Yeah,” it was a quiet, barely there confirmation. 

Derek shoved a mouthful of Honey Vanilla ice-cream into his mouth until his teeth ached with the cold.

+

“Derek! It’s Stiles, answer your phone. I’m not your Uncle Peter…or whatever his name was…get caller ID and stop living in the Stone Age. Pick up! I was looking through my dad’s stuff and I found a ton of books that had some cool writing in them. I asked him if I could bring them to the shop, and he said it’s fine! I figured you’d want to read through them first…you know, before you sell them. You still have to put them on the shelf, though, even if you don’t find them interesting! Remember? Fair is fair. You can’t be a bigoted reader…”

Derek walked into the kitchen from the bathroom, a towel lazily slung around his waist as he ruffled another through his hair. The black strands poked out into all different directions, some still plastered to his forehead. 

“Well, okay. I just wanted to call you and tell you. Thought you’d be excited. You don’t have to call me back ‘cause I’ll just see you in the morning—” Derek snorted at Stiles’s nonstop babble. “—I’ll bring all of the books. I’ll be watching you, to make sure you don’t toss any out!” 

Derek could have pressed the button to shut Stiles up. He could have answered and said, “Okay, okay, I _get_ it.” He didn’t do either. In fact, he stood, barefoot, in front of the answering machine and just let Stiles talk. It was the first foreign voice that drifted through his house that wasn’t the daily news. 

“Have a good night’s rest, Derek. I’ll see you tomorrow!” 

Derek let the towel sit upon his head as he stared down at the answering-machine that finally beeped to alert him that Stiles had hung up. He shook his head, and could not decide whether he was amused or amazed at how much one kid could possibly talk.


End file.
